Reason to Be
by mapplepie
Summary: The Hatakes were socially inept by nature, unused to properly expressing themselves through words. Once upon a time, Kakashi had been too late to save Sakumo when the man had made the worst assumption. This time, no words are left unsaid. Hinted time-travel.


_A/N: This was written and stuffed in a folder for a few months now. Actually, I'm finding a lot of half finished stories.  
>Also, I don't want to get into arguments about Sakumo's (il)logical reasoning, etc, so <em>please_ don't start. I've gotten enough of those already :l_

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><p>The tanto glinted dully under the moonlight as Sakumo unsheathed it in one quick fluid motion. There was a long, silent second as Sakumo stared hollowly at the cold, steel blade, before setting it down on the tatami mat. Sakumo himself dropped to the floor in front of it. He folded his legs beneath him, taking deep breaths as he prepared for what he hoped was the right thing to do. He grasped the tanto, twisting it in his hands. Eyes closed, the man readied himself, positioning the blade directly towards his stomach.<p>

Sakumo took a deep breath, and -

"_Don't_."

Sakumo's eyes snapped open.

The voice was soft, yet powerful enough to carry across the whole room in a dying, aching plead.

Sakumo's head jerked to the side, seeking out the owner of that familiar whisper in frantic need. "K-Kakashi," the man managed out, eyes widening at the sight of his son. Right there beside him was his precious five-year-old, slid up so close to him, so quietly, so still, Sakumo couldn't recall when he'd appeared.

Or maybe it was because Sakumo hadn't expected Kakashi in the first place, because Kakashi _wasn't_ _supposed to be there_. Kakashi was supposed to be off with Jiraiya, dragged to Jiraiya's student's place. Kakashi was supposed to spend the night there, away from the drunken sneers of men outside their windows, echoing throughout the night about Sakumo's disgrace; away from the crashes of empty bottles thrown against their house walls in a coward's attempt of scorn; away from Sakumo himself who knew his presence around Kakashi was pulling the kid into the others' hateful gazes as well.

"Don't," Kakashi repeated in that ghostly, breathy voice of his, eyes staring far away at nothing.

There was a warm, wet, _drip, drip, drip_ on Sakumo's thighs. "You're hurt!" the man exclaimed, hand immediately releasing the tanto. The blade didn't drop, held in Kakashi's pale, bare grasp. Kakashi's hand was covered in crimson red, skin sliced through from the sharp edge of the blade where he was holding onto it with an excessively tight grip in order to stop Sakumo from thrusting it into his own stomach. "Kakashi! Stop. Let go, please, you're bleeding," Sakumo rambled, his large hands cupping around Kakashi's. He peeled Kakashi's tiny fingers off the metal blade, one by one, in slow, delicate tugs.

When the last digit was lifted, the blade dropped with an unheard clatter on the tatami floor. It was all but forgotten in favour of Kakashi's wellbeing.

"What were you thinking?" Sakumo cried out, cradling Kakashi's bleeding hand gently in his own. The boy's palm welled up in blood that eagerly snaked down onto Sakumo's skin. The warm coppery fluid, smelling so strongly of his precious son, stung the man stronger than any wound could.

As if struck into action by Sakumo's words, Kakashi's head suddenly snapped towards him, eyes narrowed into a vicious glare. "No, what were _you_ thinking?" the boy shot back, in a voice that didn't belong to a five-year-old.

Sakumo struggled for words, but nothing made it out before Kakashi lowered his gaze.

"You're an idiot," Kakashi murmured, clenching his hand. Sakumo made a sound of protest from the back of his throat, but Kakashi ignored it. It was all the same, Sakumo supposed; he wasn't sure what he had been protesting - Kakashi's statement or Kakashi's movement of his injured hand.

"Aren't you supposed to be with Jiraiya?" Sakumo asked gently, trying to get away from the topic of his attempted seppuku.

"Aren't you supposed to be here when I get back?" Kakashi countered, piercing a hole so utterly deep in Sakumo's heart with that accusing line.

"I just … I mean, I was –" Sakumo fumbled.

"- being a coward?" Kakashi suggested bitterly, finishing the man's answer for him. Beneath the navy blue mask that Kakashi had started to wear some recent days earlier, the boy was clenching his teeth. "You thought I would be happier if I wasn't stuck under your shadow - wasn't blamed for your mistakes just because I am your son. But that's only part of it. It's also because _you_ couldn't take it yourself, that you tried to take the easy way out."

The bleeding hands slipped out of Sakumo's hands as Kakashi pulled his arm back towards his hunched body. "Kakashi," Sakumo started.

The boy slammed his palm onto the ground, staining a bloody handprint on the tatami mat, and successfully startling Sakumo silent.

"Do you think I'm that weak?"

Maybe he was hearing things, but what should have been a confident, scalding line from Kakashi sounded so uncertain. Sakumo couldn't even snap out an immediate cry of _"no!"_ because that contradicted what he had just been attempting to do. If Sakumo had believed Kakashi could handle it, he wouldn't have considered seppuku.

…Or maybe he would have, still?

Perhaps hidden behind his justification that this was for Kakashi's sake, he himself also wanted to get away from it all. Perhaps he was unwilling to see the disgust directed at him from everyone he had trained to protect since the moment he had chosen to become a ninja. Perhaps he just wanted to close his eyes before the one person who mattered the whole entire world to him started to believe in all the rumors he heard and crushed Sakumo's heart by looking at him with eyes filled with venom. Perhaps he wanted to freeze his life before the inevitable occurred - before Kakashi could denounce Sakumo's right to be his father. Perhaps _Sakumo_ had been the one who was weak.

"You're right," Sakumo admitted, when he didn't know what else to say, "I _am_ a coward. I just…" Sakumo just loved Kakashi _so_ much. He didn't want to live in a world without Kakashi's loving presence; despised for all eternity by his one and only son. Still, Sakumo couldn't say it out loud. Not when it sounded so much like he was turning the blame onto Kakashi. Especially if that was not what he intended.

Kakashi's stiff posture softened, wilting until his forehead pressed firmly into Sakumo's shoulder. "I know how much you love me," he murmured understandingly, muffled by Sakumo's shirt. "I just don't think you realise how much _I_ love you."

Sakumo froze at those words. He didn't even know why he was so surprised to hear them, but clearly something deep inside him had already been certain those words no longer existed. He'd thought Kakashi didn't care. He'd thought Kakashi already begun to hate him.

_He'd thought so horribly wrong._

Limbs shifted around the young five-year-old until Sakumo managed to circle his arms around Kakashi, pulling the kid close into his chest. If the kid loved him half as much as Sakumo loved Kakashi, then what the man had planned to do would've devastated Kakashi to no end.

Sakumo couldn't even recall why he thought Kakashi was pulling away.

Was it the way the kid had stared so blankly at him after that dreaded mission, after the rumour mill of the village had already done its worst? Was when Sakumo realised he had disappointed Kakashi by acting exactly opposite from what the freshly-graduated Genin had only just learnt of what a 'proper' shinobi was supposed to be like? Was it when Kakashi suddenly became so distant and independent so quickly, trying so hard to be someone who didn't rely on his father anymore? Was it when Kakashi suddenly donned that navy blue mask of his in the wake of Sakumo's disgrace, successfully covering up any characteristics of his Hatake lineage, and everything that everyone had once told Kakashi made him look so much like a little clone of his father?

Had Sakumo been reading too much into things that honestly hadn't existed?

"I'm sorry," Sakumo whispered out between a wavering breath. "I'm sorry, Kakashi. I'm so sorry."

Kakashi smiled at him with a haunted stretch of his lips that pulled stronger than what he actually felt. "I know," he said.

The boy uncurled himself from where Sakumo had tucked him into the crooks of his body. With his bloodied right hand hanging limply by his side, Kakashi stood beside his father, offering his other. The moment Sakumo placed his hand on the five-year-old's tiny palm, they closed, pulling Sakumo up, urging the man to stand.

With a small wobbled, Sakumo rolled onto his feet. Kakashi immediately directed them towards the sliding door that was the exit to the tiny study room they were in, eyes never once leaving the older man.

Sakumo offered Kakashi a strained smile, both wanting to open his mouth to say _something_ to comfort his son and equally not wanting to, certain he wouldn't be able to stop himself from apologising to his precious son for an eternity more.

The boy let out a soft sigh in response. "I forgive you," the five-year-old said, tugging his father along and out of that dreaded room with the unsheathed tanto still hazardly discarded on the floor.

Sakumo's hand tightened around Kakashi's in a quiet, nonverbal plead of _"Really? You do?" _that ached and oozed out of his every movement.

"Aaa, I'll always forgive you," Kakashi murmured, and Sakumo could hear the strong promise in his tone that made him know better than to think these were mere words of comfort. The boy smiled. "_Always_. I don't want to wait until we meet up by a bonfire in our afterlives to finally be able to tell you that."


End file.
